


Wish I Got a Warning

by LetTheMusicMoveYou



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Boys Kissing, Developing Friendships, Dirty Dancing, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Kissing, M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 11:08:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16701358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetTheMusicMoveYou/pseuds/LetTheMusicMoveYou
Summary: Louis is holding his mug in one hand while scrolling through his phone with the other. He clearly doesn’t seem in the mood for conversation, but Nick doesn’t much care. He bailed Louis’ sorry arse out of jail in the middle of the night, he figures if anyone deserves an explanation it’s him. “So you’re a car thief now?”Louis only looks at him long enough to shoot him a glare before turning his attention back to his phone. “That’s hardly what happened.”(Or the one where Nick does Harry a favor. A favor that happens to include bailing Louis Tomlinson out of jail.)Title from Stole Your Car by Charlotte Lawrence





	Wish I Got a Warning

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This has sort have been living on my computer for a while now, and I felt like it was finally time to post it. Let me know if you'd be interested in another chapter. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
> 
> Thanks for reading! x

Nick grunts as he slams his hand down on the alarm clock blaring infuriatingly close to his ear. The problem of course is that the offending noise doesn’t stop. He begrudgingly opens one eye then to glare at the clock, except it’s two in the morning which is too early for his alarm to be going off anyway. Thank the gods, but that doesn’t explain the noise. 

It takes his sleep muddled brain far too long to realize that the horrible beeping noise is actually coming from his phone. He sighs at the name displayed across the screen before clumsily hitting the answer button. 

“What is it this time Harold?” He rolls his eyes at the relieved sound he hears over the line. He’s not sure why Harry’s surprised he answered. _He always answers_. Against his better judgment and the advice of several well-meaning but overly nosy friends of his. 

“I need a favor Grim.”

Nick scrubs his hand down his face. “Then call back at a reasonable hour and we’ll talk about it.” He’s already rolling out of bed to pull on his trousers even as he says it, _cause he’s weak_. 

He winces at the rush of words that come heaving out from the other end of the line. “Please Nick, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important and I didn’t know who else to call but I understand if you don’t want to I just..”

Nick shakes his head fondly even though Harry can’t see him. “Hush pop star, I already have my boots on. So what is it you need then?” 

***

Nick really needs to learn to say no. Maybe if he’d learned how to do that somewhere along the way he wouldn’t be standing in front of a London police station at bloody three in the morning on his day off. Then again, there are few forces in this world strong enough to withstand the charms of one Harry Styles.

He sighs for what feels like already the hundredth time today as he pushes through the door to the precinct. There’s not a lot of hustle and bustle happening, but that’s probably to be expected at this unholy hour. 

He slowly makes his way up to the desk sergeant who might actually look even less thrilled to be there than Nick feels, if that’s even possible. The stout man with a tragically ill-groomed mustache gives Nick a quick and dismissive glance over before turning back to his computer screen. “What can I do for you sir?”

The man’s tone does not at all match the helpfulness of his question but Nick pushes on anyway. _He promised Harry_. He repeats that sentiment in his head like a mantra, it’s the only thing keeping him from running from the building screaming at this point.

Nick clears his throat and puffs his chest out slightly in a poor attempt at faking confidence. “I need to post someone’s bail please.” 

The other man still isn’t looking at him. “Name?” 

Nick falters slightly. “Err… my name?” 

The officer does look at him them, but Nick sort of wishes he hadn’t. It’s a less than friendly look. “The name of the suspect sir.”

Nick nods as if he knew that all along. “Of course, right. Louis Tomlinson.” 

The other man is still looking at him, Nick notes rather uneasily. He seems to be sizing Nick up. But eventually he lets Nick pay the sum and sign the paperwork. Harry assured Nick he’d pay him back, but Nick isn’t worried. _At least not about that._

The desk sergeant gestures to a row of rickety old metal folding chairs pushed haphazardly against the wall in the corner. “You can wait over there while we bring him out.” 

Nick nods and moves in the direction the man pointed but decides to lean against the wall rather than chance the chairs. He figures he’s already taking enough risks today. 

It’s probably another twenty minutes before the officer returns but this time he has company. Louis looks absolutely terrible and somehow just as beautiful as ever. It’s a baffling phenomenon. 

Nick hasn’t seen him in person for a few months. He’s terribly thin and the dark circles under his eyes are startling, but they somehow make the piercing blue irises stand out even more than usual. Louis’ hair is an absolute mess and he flicks it out of his face before glancing at Nick and rolling his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” 

Nick grunts. “Saving your arse I reckon.” 

Louis is about to retort but the desk sergeant cuts him off, handing him a plastic bag that appears to contain a phone and wallet. “Here’s your things Mr. Tomlinson. You’ll be contacted regarding a court date within the next few days.”

Louis nods tersely but otherwise doesn’t respond and it takes Nick a few seconds to realize that Louis’ already gone out the door without him. He hurries out of the station to catch up with him. Louis moves annoyingly fast for someone his size. 

“I think what you meant to say was ‘thank you so much Grimmy, I really owe you mate.” 

Louis stops then spinning on his heel in the middle of the pavement. “Thank you very much Nicholas, now kindly fuck off.” 

Nick groans and grabs Louis’ wrist as he pulls him in the direction of his car. He promised Harry he’d take care of him and he’s going to do it if it kills him.

***

Nick does his best to close the door quietly behind him as he slips back into his flat. He hears the skittering of small claws as they move across his hardwood floors before he suddenly has a ball of excited fur bouncing at his feet. He gives Pig a good petting before heading for the kitchen. He drops the bakery bag of fresh scones on the counter before moving to put a kettle on. 

He’s just transferring the scones from the bag to a plate when he sees movement in the corner of his eye. He hadn’t really expected to see Louis up yet. It’s only been a couple hours since Nick brought him here, and he doesn’t imagine Louis got much sleep in the holding cell. 

He still has those telling dark circles under his eyes, but his hair is damp from a shower so he looks slightly less ragged than he did in the police station. Nick suddenly realizes that Louis is wearing one of his T-shirts, an old grey one that says ‘yay gay’ on it. That appears to be a pair of his trackies as well. For some reason seeing Louis Tomlinson wearing his clothes is doing weird things to his brain, and possibly other parts of his anatomy as well. 

Louis doesn’t acknowledge Nick at all, rather leans down to scratch Pig behind the ears as her body wiggles happily. “Traitor,” Nick mumbles as he pours a mug of tea and holds it out to Louis. 

Louis smirks as he takes the mug and moves past Nick to grab the milk out his fridge. Louis has never even been in his flat before today and yet somehow he can manage to walk around like he owns it. 

After pouring what appears to be just the right amount of milk into his tea Louis grabs a scone off of Nick’s plate and moves to sit on a stool at the kitchen island. Nick shakes his head as he pulls another plate out of the cabinet and silently slides it over to Louis. 

Louis is holding his mug in one hand while scrolling through his phone with the other. He clearly doesn’t seem in the mood for conversation, but Nick doesn’t much care. He bailed Louis’ sorry arse out of jail in the middle of the night, he figures if anyone deserves an explanation it’s him. “So you’re a car thief now?” 

Louis only looks at him long enough to shoot him a glare before turning his attention back to his phone. “That’s hardly what happened.” 

Nick raises a brow in question. From what he understands the police pulled Louis over in a car that had been reported stolen. He’s no law expert, but there doesn’t seem to be much grey area there to him. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

Louis sighs and drops his phone on the counter in favor of picking at his scone on the plate. Nick suddenly notices that he’s barely eaten any of it. Nick fights the strange urge to tell him he needs to take better care of himself. 

Finally Louis lifts his gaze from the scone and looks at Nick. He sees a myriad of emotions pass through Louis’ expression in just a few seconds: tiredness, sadness, and most jarring of all is pain. “It was a little experiment I was doing.” He pauses to take a sip of his tea. “It went wrong clearly.” 

Nick drums his fingertips on the countertop absently. A classic Tomlinson brush-off if Nick’s ever heard one. “That was very theatrical love, but hardly an answer.” 

Louis gives him yet another eye roll and Nick wonders if he’s ever given himself a headache doing that. “Fine. I drove off with his car to see what he cared about more. It or me.” He’s not looking at Nick anymore, rather the wall behind his head. “Obviously I got my answer.”

That’s not at all what Nick had been expecting. He’s guessing the ‘he’ in question is Louis’ boyfriend. Or rather ex-boyfriend now he reckons. Nick’s never met him, doesn’t actually know much about him. He’s called Adam or Andy or something like that. All he really knows is he’s some numbers guy at an investment firm. Also that Harry doesn’t like him. But Harry’s always been weirdly protective of Louis. They have a strange relationship those two. 

Nick realizes Louis’ gone back to reducing his scone to crumbs. “Shit that sucks. I’m really sorry Louis.”

Louis just shrugs without looking up at him. “Whatever. No use crying over spilled milk yeah?” He pushes himself off the stool and away from the counter. He’s about to move through the doorway when he turns back around. “For the record I’d rather spend a night in jail than waste my time with someone who can’t be bothered to care about me until they have something else to lose.” 

Nick stares at the now empty doorway after he’s gone. Finally he looks down to Pig at his feet. “I’m in deep aren’t I Piggy?” Pig just yips at him happily before running off to follow after Louis.

Nick sighs. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” 

***

 

Something peculiar has happened. It’s nearly dinnertime and Louis Tomlinson is still inhabiting Nick’s house. Every bit of his small frame is stretched out onto Nick’s sofa, and he’s wrapped up in a blanket with pig sleeping contentedly at his feet. 

Nick is sat in the overstuffed leather armchair he inherited from his Nan. He’s no world famous pop star, but he is well enough off now to replace it. He just can’t seem to muster up the heart to toss the hunk of worn leather on the street, so there it remains in his lounge. _Not unlike the man currently occupying his sofa_.

Nick stretches his arms above his head as yet another re-run of Bake-off starts playing on the telly. He glances back to Louis and sees that his eyes are locked on the screen but he’s not entirely sure if Louis’ actually watching or rather just starting into space. 

Nick looks down at his phone as it buzzes in his lap. He rolls his eyes when he sees it’s yet another text from Harry worrying about Louis. Nick replies once again with further reassurance that Louis is fine and not currently going on any crime sprees. The last thing any of them needs is Harry canceling his Bahamas trip and flying home in a frenzy. 

Nick looks back over to Louis. He wants to say something, but he’s actually worried it might throw off the dynamic. Then again, it’s not like he actually knows what’s going on here. He and Louis aren’t anywhere near friends. In fact, some days he feels like the term ‘acquaintances might be a stretch. 

He decides to risk the overall vibe of the current situation by speaking. He knows he should probably just let the whole thing go, but something tells him Louis may need to talk this out. He watches Louis’ expression as he asks his question. “What was the plan then?”

Louis doesn’t look away from the telly as he answers. “Martin’s plan? I think he was trying to make lemon meringue, but he curdled it. Rookie mistake.”

Nick lets out a snort at that. “First of all, you know nothing about baking. Second of all, that’s not what I was talking about and you know it.” 

Louis does finally look at him then, but his expression is still passive. “What was the plan for what?”

Nick sighs, he’s really going to have to spell this out. “The car Louis. What were you going to do with the car?”

Louis just stares at him for a few beats before finally shrugging. “Not sure really. Just thought I might drive far enough to get him riled up. Maybe take it back to my place and let him sulk for a while. Not like I wasn’t going to return it… eventually.”

Nick tries to make sense of that before he answers. “That was it, that was the whole plan?” 

Louis shrugs again. “It was sort of an ‘in the moment’ type of situation. Can’t say it didn’t get me a reaction though can I? Just wasn’t quite the one I wanted innit?”

Nick nods tentatively. “I suppose you’re right. But, do you regret it?”

Louis doesn’t even take a second before he’s shaking his head firmly. “Not at all. I couldn’t stand to live in limbo anymore, constantly wondering if he was just staying with me because it was convenient or if he really gave a fuck about me. I knew I had to force his hand, make him show me without telling me. And he did. I would do it again tomorrow if I had to.”

Nick nods silently without answering. He’s not quite sure what to say to that, honestly. 

Louis leans down and scratches pig behind the ears before turning back to Nick. “Do you have any more questions for me detective, or is that it?” 

Nick rolls his eyes, but smiles. “Actually I do have one more. You hungry? I could order takeaway. Unless of course you have somewhere else you need to be?” He had meant that last question to come out snarky, but for some reason it turned out a lot more sincere than he’d intended.

Louis slides his gaze over to Nick without moving out of his cocoon position on the sofa. He shrugs noncommittally. “Thought I might try my hand at bank robbery in a bit, but I could put that off for some food I ‘spose.” 

Nick can’t help the eye roll that escapes him. “That’s hardly funny Tomlinson.”

Louis just smirks as he turns back to Bake Off. “I like extra pepperonis on my pizza.”

***

Maybe it’s the extra amount of carbs from the Dominos, or maybe it’s the second bottle of wine he’s uncorked a little while ago but something is definitely going to Nick’s head. He feels warm, but from the inside out. It’s an odd sensation he hasn’t felt in awhile. It might possibly be happiness. _Or the wine, definitely probably the wine_. 

Louis appears to be in a similar state because he’s currently dancing around Nick’s lounge. He’s twirling along to some song Nick’s never heard of. Somewhere after the first bottle of wine they turned off the T.V. and Louis hooked his phone up to Nick’s bluetooth speakers. Louis continues his one-sided waltz around Nick's coffee table with a half full glass of red wine threatening to slosh out onto Nick’s beige carpet at any given moment. 

Normally Nick would be bothered about something like that, seeing as it’s next to impossible to get red wine stains out of anything let alone carpet. But today he just can’t seem to be bothered. Maybe it’s the look of pure bliss on Louis’ face. _Or it might be the wine again_. 

Nick leans forward in his leather armchair and reaches for the now half empty bottle of wine and sloppily pours himself another glass. He really should have stopped several glasses ago, but that’s the problem with alcohol. Once you reach the point of drunk you have few inhibitions left to make you stop. Precarious situation that. 

Louis’ still spinning around in circles until he stops abruptly to look at Nick. “Come dance with me Grimshaw.”

Nick lets out a surprised laugh before shaking his head and settling back into his seat. “No way. I can’t dance on a good day, it would be a disaster in a state like this.”

Louis scoffs at that. “Nonsense. Alcohol makes anyone a better dancer. It’s a proven scientific fact.” 

Nick rolls his eyes. “I think maybe you should stick to singing pop star. I don’t really see professor of science in your future.” 

Louis narrows his eyes at him. Apparently wine heightens his already high tendency for being stubborn. “I think you don’t want to dance cause you’re scared.”

Nick shakes his head. “Nah, that’s not it. You’re just doing such a good job at it. Wouldn’t want to steal your thunder.”

Louis sets his wine glass down on the coffee table. “Fine then. Guess I’ll just have to dance all on my own.” 

Nick gets the sense that was less of a statement and more of a threat. His suspicions are confirmed when Louis grabs his phone and changes the song. 

Nick still doesn’t recognize it but he certainly picks up on the tone right away. It’s slow and sultry with a lot of bass. 

Louis starts dancing again, but there’s no waltzing this time. Now he’s all hips and body rolls. It would look ridiculous surely if anyone else was doing it. _But Nick’s not laughing._

Louis makes his way around the coffee table slowly. Nick’s eyes track him as he comes closer and closer to where Nick’s sat in his chair. He swallows hard as Louis stops in front of him, he leans forward so that his hands are resting on the arms of the chair bracketing Nick in. 

Nick’s not exactly sure what’s going on here. There’s still the chance that Louis’ just having a laugh at his expense. But judging by the intense look in Louis’ eyes, Nick doesn’t think so. Louis leans forward even more, so that Nick can feel his hot breath on his cheek when he speaks. “Since you won’t dance with me, I’ll just have to come to you then.”

God, this is like one of those fantasies that Nick’s always forbade himself from indulging in. Louis’ always been off limits for a myriad of reasons. For one, Nick’s always gotten the impression Louis didn’t care for him much. For two, there’s Harry. Nick values their friendship and he’s fairly certain this is not what Harry had in mind when he asked Nick to ‘keep an eye on Louis’ for him. And for three, Louis is very clearly going through a break-up situation. This is no time to be mucking around with whatever this is.

As much as he really doesn’t want to, Nick reaches out and grabs Louis’ wrists effectively pausing his movements. “Louis wait.”

Louis scrunches up his brow in confusion. “You’re not interested?”

Nick want’s very badly to wipe that hurt expression off his face. He closes his eyes for a second in an attempt to summon whatever will-power he may have left. “No love, that’s not it at all. I’m very much interested, as you can see.” He uses his head to motion downwards to the bulge forming in his sweats.

Louis looks confused again. “Then what’s the problem?”

Nick lets out an exasperated sigh. “Because Louis. We’re drunk, and you’re sad. I don’t want you regretting this in the morning. Besides re-bounds never turn out to be helpful no matter which way you swing it. I’m speaking from experience.”

Louis shifts and before Nick knows it he’s sitting in Nick’s lap with his legs bracketing Nick’s own. “I appreciate your concern for my honor Nicholas but there are a few flaws in your logic.”

Nick raises his brow in question. “Ok, then. Enlighten me.”

Louis smirks delightedly. “Gladly. First of all, I’m not too drunk to know what I’m doing and neither are you. Second of all, this isn’t a re-bound. I don’t do that, it’s not my style.” He wrestles a hand out of Nick’s now loose grip and uses it to grab Nick’s jaw so that he’s looking right in his eyes. “Do you want me Nick?” He punctuates his question with a roll of his hips that makes Nick groan.

Nick starts to nod, but realizes he’s still in Louis’ grasp so he decides to speak instead. “Yes Louis, I want you. Have wanted you for a long time.” 

Louis smiles and leans forward so close their lips are centimeters from touching. “That’s all I need then.” 

Next thing he knows Louis’ lips are on his own. It’s like everything he imagined and better. Nick can taste the wine on him and it’s addicting. He slides his hand down to Louis’ hips when he feels Louis’ fingers tangle in the hair at the base of his neck.

He pulls away after a few minutes so that he can catch his breath. Louis’ face is flushed and he’s panting with need. He looks more beautiful that Nick’s ever seen him. “Just for the record, you would never need to steal my car to get my attention.”

Louis smirks. “Good to know.”

 


End file.
